We are told by those who say they know what they're talking about that the Church today needs a pastor who can relate to the guy in the pew—someone who is gritty, occasionally profane, compassionate, sympathetic and not too hard on sin after all none of us will reach perfection here on earth. However, as anyone takes an honest look at the Word of God, he sees that this advice is bad advice. He sees something totally different.

What we need today in the pulpit is courage. This is not the time to go soft or politically correct so as to not “offend” the overly sensitive (often the overly sensitive is just a cover for a rebellious, hard heart). The apostle Paul put it this way: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13 ESV).

Yes, love all men in everything you do (as Paul goes on to write in 1 Corinthians 16:14), but let it be love that is more than sentimental gibberish. Our love is to be genuine, costly and powerful. I appreciate how Doug Wilson puts it: “… We must be masculine in our ministry because the pulpit ought to be the sort of public place where it takes courage to stand. … To say the pulpit is a place that requires courage of a sort peculiar to men is not to say that courage is non-existent or unnecessary everywhere else. But this is just a small sampling of what a minister of the gospel must be willing to do—he must be willing to be misunderstood and misrepresented in ways just like this” (Douglas Wilson, Still Not Professionals: Ten Pleas for Today’s Pastors, p. 14).

So, men be men. Be courageous and strong in the power of the Lord. Now is not the time to be something less than what God created us to be.

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Pastor & Blogger

Mark Shaeffer is pastor of Grace Covenant Church. He and his wife, Lynn, have been married for 27 years and are delighted to be the parents of 13 awesome children (no, the 13 is not a typo). When he is not reading, studying, preaching or helping with Algebra, Mark enjoys hiking and backyard football with his family, folk and early music, and all things historical.______________________"I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write.” ~ Augustine